Aleppo Is Back Under Gov’t Control, Syrian Military Says

On Thursday, the Syrian government announced that it has taken full control of the city of Aleppo, ending a five-year civil war between the regime and the nation’s rebels. In late November, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies made significant gains on the eastern section of Aleppo, with the entire take over finally coming to an less than a month later.

An estimated 400,000 Syrian civilians were killed and 4.81 million left the country since the war began in 2011.

A UN official said that more than 34,000 people had been evacuated in the past week and have been taken to a rebel-held territory in the countryside west of Aleppo.

The on-going civil war created tensions between Assad and his allies and the United States. In 2012, President Obama issued a “red line” for Assad, threatening to use force if the regime leader was found to be using chemical weapons against his people. Despite evidence that he had, the United States refrained from stepping in militarily leaving hundreds of thousands to continue to be slaughtered.

The Obama Administration ensured that they were trying to use diplomacy to make the fighting come to an end, with Secretary of State John Kerry meeting with his Russian counterpart to try and convince the Russians to stop assisting in the bombings. Russia continuously refused and stated that unless the United States could come up with a viable solution to separate the terrorists from the civilians that they would continue to attack the region.